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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26503774">no love lost</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/midsommur/pseuds/midsommur'>midsommur</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Batman (Movie 2021)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, orig posted on my tumblr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:21:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26503774</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/midsommur/pseuds/midsommur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce wasn’t anything if he wasn’t the type to throw himself into his work.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bruce Wayne/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>no love lost</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t that she was mad at him for working—in fact, if he hadn’t been, she would probably be alarmed. Bruce wasn’t anything if he wasn’t the type to throw himself into his work, spending hours in the cave, deciphering codes and perfecting what was already perfect in his armor. Nothing would ever be enough. There would never be finality in his line of work. Something would always lead to another.</p><p>And she had grown to be okay with this. She was ardently in love with this man, all the multifaceted and interdisciplinary parts of him. She was highly aware of his obsessively analytical tendencies, and how he would view the cases and mysteries he would involve himself in as more important than himself, and his own health and wellbeing.</p><p>Bruce was nothing if not selfless. Generous and giving to his core.</p><p>She loved this about him, when it wasn’t a parasitic sort of urge to do more than what was needed, and when it was all in moderation.</p><p>Now was not one of these times.</p><p>It had started one night, when he’d trudged himself into the cave bloody, not even so much as alerting her of his presence. She had to learn from Alfred that he had finally come home, hours later, once he had tended to all his injuries.</p><p>“You shouldn’t be too harsh on him,” the older gentleman had told her, as she wrapped herself up in a thick cardigan before making the descent down into the freezing cave. “He didn’t want to worry you.”</p><p>“Worry me,” she repeats, a huff of sardonic laughter barely leaving her mouth. For all his prodigious knowledge, Bruce could be so painfully ignorant.</p><p>She finds him slumped in his chair, his drooping demeanor becoming a more consistent sight as the nights would pass. He was still in his batsuit, except for the cowl that lay discarded on the desk. The monitors in front of him transcribe unrecognizable letters, all of which held some meaning she was sure was much higher than her.</p><p>He doesn’t acknowledge her presence, not until she’s wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind his chair, pressing her cheek against his shockingly cold one.</p><p>“How long have you been here?”</p><p>Bruce sighs, leaning into her touch that he feels is undeserved. She was patient, too patient, and he knew that any answer he would give her would disappoint her. A lie or not, the fact that he was here at all was sure to make her upset. Rightfully, he knew where he should have been all along was in bed with her. “A few hours.”</p><p>She doesn’t say anything, simply moving out from behind him to the front, barricading his view of his computers to get her first coherent look at him since he had left her the previous night. Her arms are crossed, and he feels something like shame. She looks sad. Forlorn. She would never admit it, but he knew he had made her this way. </p><p>Stripped her of the affection she’d craved so deeply from him.</p><p>“I get lonely,” she says after a minute, as if all she could ponder in that time were those small measly words. “Feels like you don’t pay attention to me.”</p><p>He could think it, believe it to be true, but hearing the words from her make it all the more real, and it pains him just as much. He reaches out for her, grasping, pulling her into him. “That’s not true,” he says, though he doesn’t believe himself. She wrestles into his lap, nestles her face into the crook of his neck. It’s a little uncomfortable, the broad collar of his suit poking the side of her face, but it’s enough to be near him, breathe him in.</p><p>Pressed against him, his suit, his gloved hand stroking her back, she can almost feel his guilt. Each pass of his hand against her spine is an apology in itself, one for each vertebral notch, words he can’t spell out loud but can be felt against her skin.</p><p>She can feel him. She can feel him and it’s enough.</p><p>Her lips press against the bare skin of his pale neck, and in a sense, its her response. Her forgiveness against his veins. He feels her lips quirk up into a smile, and he knows, for now, there’s no resent. She understood him, and she would forgive him time and time again.</p><p>When she pulls away from him, her hands move up to hold his cheeks, his face in her hands as if it were something so precious. The face he looks up into now is no longer sad, if only just a little mopey. She loved to tease him and mock him, act a fool just to make him grin. She pushes out her bottom lip and draws her eyebrows in together, her faux sadness consuming her expression. “It’s so true,” she tells him, voice raised up an octave to indicate she’s just ridiculing him. “Sometimes I think you forget I exist.”</p><p>He gives her a look, that despite the raised eyebrows, would normally seem open ended and broad. It’s the quiet stare he’s got on, the one that’s vacantly staring at her and that makes her wonder if he just was not in the mood for her or her antics tonight, that makes her puff out a soft sigh before moving up and off his lap. She only gets about two steps away from the desk when she feels his hand latch around the back of her neck, forcing her to spin quickly into him and face him. Barely registering the quick movement, she stays frozen just briefly as his lips crash against hers.</p><p>She relaxes quickly into his touch, his embrace, just as she always had. There was just a sense of comfort in Bruce, even in his harshest of kisses, when the wind felt nearly knocked out of her chest. He’d pull away, let his eyes open faintly to admire her stunned expression, before he was against her again.</p><p>If she hadn’t felt like his priority before, she had now. Bruce was meticulous, calculated about almost everything, even in his kisses. It’s like he had every miniscule detail accounted for—how he brushed her hair behind her ear, his hands nearly everywhere, when to let her breathe, when to go on. His kisses alone left her with a blissed out expression and a sappy smile on her face.</p><p>Her eyes flutter open, and in a soft voice, she asks him, “Are you busy?”</p><p>Bruce just grins. “I have time for you.”</p><p>He’s about to lead her up back into the manor, where he can take her where it’s warmer, softer, but she has a firm grip on his hand that’s guiding him to his desk. “Here,” she tells him, before spinning back to face him, pulling him back down into another heated kiss. “Want it here.”</p><p>He groans, the feeling of her lips and teeth and tongue against his own clouding his judgement. Only her words offer light, guiding him to his next actions. Here. Here. Desk. He hoists her up in a swift movement, her legs wrapping around his waist and holding him there, as close as she could muster.</p><p>Bruce pulls away from her, the whine she elicits sending a rush of heat down to the pit of his stomach. However, for whatever reason, he felt this underlying urge to drag this out, and truly take his time and spend it on her, rather than fall victim to fast-paced desperation. It was like this inherent need for control when everything else was falling apart around him—this would happen the way it should, and it would be because of him and his say.</p><p>She whines, tightening her legs around his waist, yet he doesn’t falter. Instead, his lips part, just a breath, as he guides a finger into her mouth, as if demonstrating what he’d want her to do. To take him as he’d serve. Ever the eager one to please, she opens her mouth wider as he prods inside her mouth, two fingers now flat against her tongue.</p><p>“So good for me,” he mumbles, eyes never wavering from the sight of her, obeying his commands and even then some. The praise turns the corners of her lips upward, any potential sounds of glee stifled by the roughness of his digits taking up her mouth.</p><p>When he pulls them out, the small gasp she lets out is unmatched with the one she makes as he slips his hand past the lace of panties and against her core, sending her panting against his mouth as she crumbles at his touch, and the feeling of his fingers alone. She writhes against him, holding firm against the shoulder pads of his armor as he takes her further and further. She makes it so clear how needy she is for him, how desperately devout she is, willing to take him anyway he would give himself. He feels something like pride, something like love. Like she was his and this was one of the indisputable facts of the world. Unwavering and unchanging—she was his, and she always would be.</p><p>The moan she makes as she comes, he thinks, is sure enough proof of that.</p><p>She thinks that he’s done after that, that he was just meaning to make quick work of her before sending her back off to their room sappy and sated, so that he could return to his work. The thought vanishes as he brings a hand up to her cheek, thumb rubbing under her eye, swiping away a tear she hadn’t even known she’d shed. From the pleasure, from the deft hands that brought it to her.</p><p>The sudden soft eyes and gentle touches makes her grow suddenly bashful, so she combats the quiet moment by reaching for the waistband of his tactical pants. She couldn’t pull them down alone, what with their general thickness and her position on his desk, so together they fumble at the belt, until he’s slid up against her against, the groans falling from her lips all the heavier.</p><p>As he moves in her, his pace tenacious and practiced, he coos soft praises into her skin, things she’d hardly believe but still liked to hear as long as they came from Bruce’s mouth. Things like how she was made for him, how enamored he was by her, how perfect she was, how undeserving he was. It was the upmost perfect dichotomy between Bruce Wayne and the Batman, undying praise and adoration combatted with a firm hold on her waist and a snap of his hips against hers.</p><p>She was always so fascinated with his hands, his grip on her waist remaining with one hand while the other traveled up to root itself in her scalp, bracing the back of her neck. How big and all-encompassing they were. How they wielded weapons with such ferocity, battled criminals with such intensity, and still cold cradle her as if she were made of the finest glass. His sweetness, only ever apparent to her, only her, could make her weep.</p><p>As she comes for the second time, clenching around him, he follows suit with a heady grunt.</p><p>She feels her mind sputter, tries to think of something to say, but comes up empty. She normally does. It’s why she’s so thankful for Bruce, his natural charm and suave ever apparent in these moments.</p><p>With an endearing smile, he pulls the cardigan that had fallen back up around her shoulders. “Come on,” he tells her, gesturing to the monitors as he helps her up off of the desk. “All of this can wait.”</p><p>She smiles. “Gotham’s not gonna combust if you take a break?”</p><p>“No,” he says, his laugh a little breathless as they make their way up the warmth of the manor. “It’d better not.”</p>
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